A conventional part-mounting apparatus for use in fabricating a flat panel display represented by a liquid crystal panel mounts a flexible electronic part, such as a FPC (flexible printed circuit), a COF (chip-on-film) circuit, a TCP (tape carrier package) or the like on a glass substrate.
Generally, such a part-mounting apparatus includes a substrate carrying device for positioning a glass substrate at a working position and carrying a glass substrate between working positions.
FIGS. 8A and 8B show a conventional substrate carrying device 50. As shown in FIG. 8A, the substrate carrying device 50 includes a transfer mechanism 53 capable of translational movement and rotation in an XY-plane, and a substrate support member 51 attached to the transfer mechanism 53 to support a glass substrate 41 thereon.
Glass substrates for flat panel displays or the like are formed in different sizes corresponding to the types of flat panel displays. Therefore, the substrate carrying device 50 is required to carry those glass substrates having different sizes. When conducting changing work for changing the types of flat panel displays, the substrate support member 51 of the conventional substrate carrying device 50 is replaced with another one of a size corresponding to that of a new type of flat panel displays. More concretely, as shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, a substrate support member 51 for carrying small substrates 41 is attached to the transfer mechanism 53 when the substrate carrying device 50 is used for carrying the small substrate 41, (FIG. 8A), and a substrate support member 52 for carrying large substrates 41′ is attached to the transfer mechanism 53 when the substrate carrying device 50 is used for carrying the large substrate 41′, (FIG. 8B).
Thus the conventional substrate carrying device 50 changes the substrate support members when the types of flat panel displays are changed to use a substrate support member of a size corresponding to that of glass substrates to be carried.
However, the size of glass substrates for forming flat panel displays has progressively enlarged in recent years and the weight of the substrate support member of the substrate carrying device 50 has increased accordingly. Therefore, changing the substrate support members requires very difficult work and much time.